JAYBIRD-WOODPECKER
WAR

If
we will include Richmond,
in Fort Bend County, in East Texas, we can visit about an interesting political
dispute that left debate behind and embraced violence to settle old scores.

Back a ways, when many voters were a little light on their literacy skills, symbols
appearing beside the names of candidates identified their political party. In
Fort Bend County, a silhouette of the jaybird symbolized the Redeemer portion
of the Democratic Party and the woodpecker represented those who had flourished
during Radical Republican reconstruction, who also had begun to call themselves
Democrats by the 1880s.

The Jaybirds wanted to take back control of their
county from the Woodpeckers, who were just as determined to remain in power. The
election of 1888 witnessed altercations between representatives of the two factions,
including the killing of J.M. Shamblin and the wounding of Henry Frost, both Jaybird
leaders.

Although the Jaybirds constituted the overwhelming majority of
white residents of the county, the Woodpeckers won the election with a heavy vote
in the black community. Election day passed quietly enough, but soon afterward
Woodpecker Kyle Terry killed Jaybird L.E. Gibson, and a week later Jaybird Volney
Gibson shot Terry.

These deaths set the stage for the Battle of Richmond
on August 16, 1889. A gunfight erupted between Woodpeckers J.W. Parker and W.T.
Wade and Jaybirds Guilf and Volney Gibson in the center of town. Partisans from
each side rallied to support their own, and for twenty minutes Richmond's streets
and public buildings became a combat zone. When the shooting slowed, Woodpeckers
holed up in the courthouse
and Jaybirds controlled the rest of the town.

The Houston Light Guards
arrived to enforce martial law, followed by the Brenham Light Guards led by Governor
Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross himself. With order restored, and the Jaybird majority
in control, the citizens reorganized their county's government to insure they
remained in control; indeed, they were a potent force in county politics for many
decades afterward.

Governor Ross's popularity also received a boost, not
only from the image of a man of action riding at the head of a military unit,
but also because the Redeemers regained control. Wonder what he would think today,
with the Republican Party once more firmly in control of Fort Bend County.